SNL Recap: Steve Carrell

Steve Carrell hosted SNL this week and it had some funny moments. I've included a few below.

The first thing is the opening skit which had me rolling and is right on par with some of my Twitter updates from yesterday.



I wish I would have seen that clip before yesterday because I probably would have laughed out loud. The next skit is one about CPR that made me chuckle for some reason. Its got a little SNL gore, so exercise caution on that.



Here's the opening monologue. I laughed because it's classic Steve Carrell. Also, I drink far too many red bulls (they get me through my business trips) and the thought of having 6 makes me laugh/cringe/salivate.



Everything included, this was my favorite clip on SNL this week.



Like I said, I will be gone for most of the week, so I'm not sure how much I'll be posting - I'll do my best. Have a good week.

Samsung Shrinks Shia's SNL

I haven't written about this yet because I'm in denial, but about 3 months started to act a little schizo. It would take about 10 minutes to turn on (after flashing on and off the entire time). Turns out that's really f-ing annoying. So, I put it in a service request with Samsung thinking the issue would be resolved. Turns out it took 3 fucking months for Samsung to get the part for my less than 1-year-old TV (which they said they discontinued) to the repair people...which, of course, didn't fix the issue - so the service people took my TV back to their shop. I have no clue what they are doing there but I'm pretty sure there's a lot of masterbation/being douche-bags because there's not a lot of TV fixing happening.

Why am I telling you this now? I struggled through a week-and-a-half without a TV, hoping everyday that my TV would come back to me, but, sadly, it has not happened yet. Over the course of a week+, DVR'd TV really starts to back up. So tonight I caved and started watching TV - leading off with SNL.

It was new for the first time in forever and Shia LaBeouf was the host. One of the best recurring skits SNL has going right now is the MacGruber skits. Shia did a few of them and they were all pretty good.



I know I've already talked typed a lot but I want to give you a brief story before I show you another clip. Last summer Transformers came out and Megan Fox catapulted herself into the pop culture circle of my friends. Turns out she's hot. In any case, turns out my brother-in-law, AP, thought that the Megan's name was Shia LaBeouf, which my friend used to his advantage - culminating in a speaker phone call where AP told a car full of dude's that he thought Shia was unbelievably hot and he would do certain things that I cannot repeat here. With that in mind, here is another skit that's kinda funny (there were some funnier skits, but in context I don't think I laughed harder).



Here's the digital short from the week. It was ok - but I'm pretty sure it was just a shot at some country artists which makes it cool with me.



One side note on the episode - Keenan was prominently featured in about 4 skits. And 2 of them could have been funny, but he blew it (one was funny, despite him, and his news desk stuff isn't funny at all). Just about every time Keenan talked I wanted to kill myself. He is atrocious. Here is one skit featuring Keenan where I actually did laugh (not from him though).



Last note: it looks like SNL has finally figured out that putting all kinds of clips up on the Hulu makes sense. So, here's a link.

Have a good week.

Attack of the Cougars

Remember a week ago when I said SNL didn't put up my favorite clips from an episode? Well, one of my favorite clips showed up on YouTube - its called the Cougar's Den. Enjoy it while it lasts.



While we're on the topic of older women, here's Hilary (she's an older woman...not a cougar though), Obama, and McCain doing promos for the WWE.



There is a reason candidates don't do this sort of thing usually - because they aren't actors. They come across flat. That said, its kinda funny to hear Obama drop The Rock's lines. Also, how much money would you pay to see McCain reread the transcript from this Hulkster rant.

SNL + Ashton Was Pretty Good

SNL was new this week and there were some pretty funny parts. I think there's only 2 SNL's left this season, but I can tell you right now that this season has been one of the best in years. My only major complaint with the latest episode was the large number of skits that Keenan appeared in. I have no clue how much input the guest host has during a week on the cast involvement but it seems like Ashton went with Keenan a lot.I don't get it.

This is normally where I would show you the best clips. Unfortunately, SNL picks which clips to show, so here are my fourth and fifth favorite clips from the week.

#4



#5



To make up for the lame clips, here's an awesome clip from South Park a couple weeks ago.

This is South Park's take on a pretty famous internet video (warning - prolly NSFW language and gay content - not that there's anything wrong with that).



Later in that episode, here's where South Park had a bunch of "internet stars" battle it out.

The Office is Back!

I feel like I just wrote this post about 6 months ago...The Office is back tonight (A brief aside, Ross told me that I should have posted this yesterday, but I didn't want to tempt you a day early). I was torn, but, ultimately decided to wait until today (sorry, Ross).

Anyway, I usually focus on Pam, Karen, Jim and Dwight, but here's an awesome compilation of Michael Scott's various dance moves.



In other news from The Office, NBC has greenlighted a spinoff for next spring. I don't know what to think of this yet, but, to be honest, I don't know how you can be upset about it. I love The Office.

Sticking with the NBC theme, since I didn't post on Monday, you might have missed that Christopher Walken hosted SNL for the 7th time and it was pretty good. You may have caught some of the sketches already, but here are a couple of my favorites if you haven't seen them yet.

The first is called Surprise Party.



The second is a Walken Family Reunion. This skit would be genius if it wasn't for Keenan butchering it near the end.

Over The Hills

No new SNL again this week (how do they have a "return" episode and then follow it up with 2 off weeks?). It was the Ellen page episode again, so at least it had the funny Milkshake skit.

In any case, last week in the Skeet Thrower Draft I picked LC. I thought this was a great pick, but some people didn't even know who she was. I would show you some clips, but MTV shows are a bitch to embed. Fortunately for us, Heavy.com has recreated scenes from "The Hills" with old people and called it "Over The Hills." If you have ever watched any version of "The Hills" or "Laguna Beach," I think you'll enjoy these. If you haven't, then you'll quickly learn why I hate LC.



Here's another clip from a discussion that I assume happened after the previous clip (I have no clue because I don't watch the show). I would include links to more, but the Heavy.com player includes them right at the bottom of the video for me.



Have a good week.

SNL: Andy's Dad

I watched my DVR'd SNL last night - this was one of the worst episodes of the season. The skits weren't that funny and they could have made the Spitzer stuff funnier. It is unfortunate because Jonah Hill was on the show and I'm pretty sure he could have been funnier. To be fair to SNL, I'm pretty sure they have kicked Maya Rudolph off the show and I don't think Keenan appeared on screen more than once or twice - so they are going in the right direction.

Anyway, here's the digital short from this week that made me laugh, really, really hard.

I Love Me Some Milkshakes

Well, I'm back from my trip to the NFL Combine. I wasn't allowed to go inside of the combine arena itself, so I can't give you any updates as to how a certain player performed. I can tell you that twin brothers Rex Ryan and Rob Ryan both had a double steak burger, fries and a chocolate shake at the Steak & Shake every night at around 11:45pm. I'm not kidding - and I know this because I was eating the same thing every night at the same time.

The first night my boss and I sat at Steak & Shake, I was seated facing their table (for full disclosure, there were two other guys with them as well). At one point, Rob reached across the table and stole a milkshake from one of the other guys. I laughed to myself because it was the first time I had been in the vicinity of milkshakes since I saw There Will Be Blood. What do milkshakes and TWBB have to do with each other? There was an awesome scene in that movie where Daniel Day Lewis tells the scrawny guy from The Girl Next Door/Little Miss Sunshine (Paul Dano). Here's the scene if you haven't seen the movie.

Update: I've embedded a ridiculous cutup of this scene from Metacafe because the real thing keeps getting pulled from YouTube. You get the gist of it and it makes me laugh.



Side note: I didn't really like that movie, but I don't really like Upton Sinclair either, so take that with a grain of salt. Daniel Day Lewis did just win an award for that movie last night, though. That scene made me laugh though.

I didn't try to explain that scene to my boss, who hasn't seen the movie, because I didn't think it would be that funny if I had to explain it. Then SNL (which was pretty damn good) dropped this clip on us - it made me laugh pretty hard.



The milkshake bit was well done and the screaming about abandoning his boy was genius if you've seen the movie. Well done, SNL, and keep it up.

Also, if you ever have a chance to get a Steak & Shake milkshake, I recommend it.

New Years Eve: Get Your Boogie On

I haven't said much about it, but I'm rocking it here in the ATX, visiting my parents (unfortunately, this meant I missed some quality Wheezy time in Omaha). The last time we visited we didn't really see them, so this time Shorty and I have spent more time with them and taken it kinda easy.

But tonight is New Year's Eve, only one of the best party nights in over the 365 day year and Shorty and I are going to a party at one of our friends' places. The awesome part was my mom asking me if we were going to go to a party (I said yes) and she was like "OK, good. Your dad and I have been invited to a couple parties and wanted to make sure that you two weren't going to be bored at home." Thanks, mom.

Anyway in preparation for New Years Eve, here are some dance moves you can bust out tonight - it the Superbad sance intro performed masterfully by a couple of chicks.



This video is an exact reason why I love the Internets. Previously, this talent would have been wasted on a few friends, maybe a home video or a a talent show. Instead, now, it is getting burn on YouTube and FunnyOrDie as well as the all-important Skeet Thrower. They even have the video split-screened so you can see how well they performed it. Bonus: both of those videos are right at 1:05, so you can even watch them at work without feeling remotely guilty.

Also, while I'm on the subject of getting your groove on, here's a video of Will Ferrell giving us a little more cowbell with Queens of the Stone Age on SNL. This actually happened and I'm not sure how I've missed it (although I feel like I've seen this before). If you ever wanted to know what Will Ferrell would have looked like if he played the cowbell for more that 30 seconds, this is your chance.



I'm not sure how anyone on that stage held it together. Jimmy Falon couldn't in the damn skit...

Have a safe New Year's, everybody (and don't do be a derka by drinking and driving, honestly). I'll be traveling tomorrow so hopefully I'll be back by Wednesday or Thursday.

See you in 2K8.

Tim Meadows Walks Hard

By now, you should know me, and, so, you should know I love movies. Especially ones that feature Will Ferrell or are directed by Judd Apatow. That's why I'll be on my way to the store today to pick up the unrated version of Superbad on DVD.

Anyway, I'm sure you have seen the preview for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story which comes out in 2 weeks. In case you haven't, here's an extended trailer (that you prolly haven't seen anyway).



I'll probably see it just because there's a Team Pam, Paul Rudd and inevitable Will Ferrell cameo. Altogether, I'm not sure how good this movie will be, but, if nothing else there's a cameo from the woefully underused Tim Meadows.



Not that funny you say? Well just watch this clip of Tim Meadows as the Ladies Man and tell me that you aren't excited for his cameo.



Psyche. (Does anyone even say that anymore? I just say things like Noonan or Steve Perry while others, like my brother-in-law, go for things like Terry Schaivo or Michael Vick...nobody's perfect I guess). Anyway, here's a real clip of Tim Meadows.

Robert Goulet: American Gangster

So, this weekend I saw American Gangster with Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas, a heroin kingpin of Harlem. It was good and I recommend seeing it (it is 157 minutes - thats 2 hours and 37 minutes - so its kinda long, but worth it). I won't say much about the movie other than that, because its a drama and I don't want to spoil anything. As far as the cast goes, beyond Denzel and Russel Crowe, I was interested to see the 3rd-tier supporting cast for this movie. That's right the 3rd-tier guys, not the main people or their supporting actors (whom I would consider 2nd-tier), but the rest of the cast.

Why was I interested in the rest of the cast? Because, Jay-Z was producing the music for the movie and I figured he and his crew/posse/boys would have a cameo/minor part as a result of this fact (and more than likely, mess it up). Turns out that the movie features hip-hop artists Common, RZA and T.I. who all perform very well in their smaller roles. No Jay-Z, and, strangely, no new Jay-Z songs (there was one older song). Turns out the director's wanted to go with a 70's feel for the music, and so Jay-Z is instead releasing a concept CD "inspired" by the movie (the last time I heard a CD called a concept album, it was Dr. Dre promoting something called Detox. which has only been delayed like 5-6 years...but that's another post - I digress). I really know nothing about Jay-Z's new album. I hope its better than his last one - because that one sucked. Fortunately for us, Jay-Z has done a lot of things that don't suck, like this skit with Will Ferrell.



That's right, a second Robert Goulet SNL Skit, this time with profanity (that's really old but for some reason I had never seen that one...or just don't remember it)! Goulet really appears to have that gangsta thing down. Why wasn't he in American Gangster, you ask? Well, you may or may not know, but Goulet passed away last week (RIP). And even though they film the movie months in advance, they removed the scenes he was in the movie because they felt it was poor taste. Everything in the last sentence is also false - he simply was not in the movie. In any case, most people in 18-30 range (so, pretty much everyone that reads this blog...all 8 of us) best know Goulet from those skits or perhaps this Emerald Nuts commercial from the SuperBowl.



I think that was my favorite commercial from the Super Bowl. Well done, Goulet. Well done, indeed.

Casual Dress Friday: Lazy Post

It's a Casual Dress Friday and I have been spending the majority of my nights this week trying to find a suitable, original costume for our early Halloween party this week. I've been thinking about it too much and now I have no ideas. In any case, it has finally caught up to me and now I'm posting a follow-up post to yesterday.

You remember yesterday when Conan went off about the fire alarm? Here's the follow-up to that.



You remember yesterday when I talked about how SNL is starting to get a little funny again. Well here's an old-school Barkley skit that's way funnier than the one they did this week.


How creepy does Chris Farley seem there. I'm not sure that its very funny (mainly because it features Rob Schneider) but Charles Barkley's choke-hold makes me laugh every time (and its still funnier than anything Keenan can do).

The best part of yesterday may have been a point brought up in the comments, as to whether 30 Rock has crested The Office in funniness. I will agree that the hour long episodes and new character directions have brought them closer together, but I'm not sure which one is funnier. I'll think about it this weekend. In any case, both Shorty and I have found ourselves playing the screen saver game which The Office nailed.

Could SNL Be Coming Back?

Well, I DVR'd the PIR this week and I finally got around to watching some of it. Was there ever this much white trash on the PIR? Seriously, 95% of the audience are people that I would not want to encounter. The craziest thing about the PIR is that there's only about 15 minutes of real show. Honestly, I plowed through an entire episode in 15 minutes. They stretch it to an hour! Holy nuts. Half (or more) of the people that watch the PIR are 75+. They could use that extra 45 minutes to do other stuff. Honestly CBS, you are wasting 3 hours and 45 minutes of everyone's time each week. Your entire show is a commercial, do you really need 45 minutes of ad time? I still love you though, PIR. Please don't be mad at me. Just tell Drew to sharpen up (no one wants to ask the fancy soundboard guy if they have 3 numbers right...they want to ask the ladies. Damnit, Drew - get it right).

Speaking of shows you can plow through, I also watched my DVR'd SNL last night. Between the PIR and SNL, I got in a good hour of tv. SNL seems to be improving. There was only one skit that featured the worthless Keenan, and not many more with that chick that thinks she black. I'm sure you've seen the Punched digital short, which was pretty funny, but the two things that made me laugh the hardest were these two videos.

1) Easily the funniest thing: Making fun of Notre Dame football. Not only do I hate ND, but this also makes me feel better about Nebraska's suck-ass season and laugh at the same time. Well done, SNL.



2) The second funniest thing is when the parodied Dane Cook's MLB Playoff commercials (which are linked here and atrocious).



What is the deal with major sports executives making bad commercials for the playoffs? At least Dane Cook's are better than D-bag Blaine's. In any case, that's three funny things in one episode (along with a couple other things that made me chuckle). It looks like SNL could be starting to improve.

If SNL could become funny again, they could begin to dominate the 11:30pm-12:30am CST humor time slot 6 nights a week (instead of their usual 5), thanks to my boy Conan. If you haven't seen this clip from a couple days ago, here's where Conan goes off because a fire alarm starts ringing.

Football is in Full Effect

Well, its September and one of my favorite traditions - the football season - has arrived. This weekend the football kicked into full effect with an entire weekend of college and NFL games. What does this mean? Basically every weekend from now until January, I will be sitting in front of my TV and my computer watching games and scores from about 11am to 10pm. Good times. Of course, since I'm sitting in front of a computer, you'd think this would increase the number of blog posts I make, but this has not held true after NFL week 1.

Of course, football season means its time for fantasy football. This year, I upped myself from 1 FFL team and one pick-em to 4 FFL teams, 2 NFL pick-ems and 2 college pick-ems. I've gone overboard. I couldn't even tell you who to root for this week because I had too many conflicting players. For the first time, in one of my leagues, I own Peyton Manning and I didn't have to play against him in any other leagues this week. This made it easy to root for a guy that I generally make fun of a lot. That said, I was very impressed with Peyton's SNL appearance. After it aired the first time, I only saw a few clips, but it was rerun on Saturday and I DVR'd the whole thing On a side note - I've decided SNL is a prime DVR show - there's really only about 45 minutes of skits and you can probably fast forward through about 20 minutes of them (for instance, anything that features Keenan). But I digress - Peyton had me laughing quite a few times, such as in this skit.



Thank God Keenan had a towel there or he could have ruined the whole skit Jimmy Fallon style. I'll let it slide though since that funny cop from Superbad was trying no to laugh as well. Also, I guess Peyton doesn't make me laugh as much there as the guy that's in The Brother's Solomon (which is just getting slaughtered on Rotten Tomatoes). I guess his name is Will Forte (I don't think Will Forte even says anything in that clip). He's no Will Arnett.



And you think that I only remembered Will Arnett from Arrested Development

Week In Recap: Wheezy's Birfday Birthday

I'm OK with the Facebook.com. I don't really check it that often, but there is one thing that I pretty much couldn't live without: the birthday reminders. I'm usually pretty good about remembering birthdays but every once in a while I would miss one. Now that doesn't happen.

One birthday I wouldn't miss? My boy Wheezy's birthday. Hope you have a good one, brother. To celebrate, here's a ridiculous birthday song for you.



On to the recap...

On Monday, we celebrated Memorial Day by taking a look at National Anthem Disasters.

Wednesday we looked at a different disaster, the Miss Universe 2007 competition.

The first post of June was Friday and we took a look at some funny-ass videos from Michael Cera. The second video in that post is a spoof of a ridiculous video that someone attached to their resume. If you haven't seen it before (or in the last week or so), I recommend that you watch it.



Have a good week.

Colbert: The Beginnings

I watched a small amount of SNL in the 90's last night. It was OK, but it just made me sad to remember what we had (on a side note, a lot of the alums looked really, really bad. Just awful). On the plus side, it allowed me to think about all of the good spin-offs SNL created. One of my favorites was the Dana Carvey Show (not to be confused with the Drew Carey Show - which I hated). I don't think the Dana Carvey Show lasted very long but it did have some awesome clips like this one:



When I was in middle school, that was the funniest thing ever. Anyway, one of the best parts of the DCS is that is featured Stephen Colbert (who, on a side note has an awesome Wiki: Wikiality.com featuring an article entitled Obamamamamia!). He seemed to be in most of the skits that made me laugh like Skinheads from Maine or him acting as a news reporter (as a precursor to his Daily Show days - I would normally have a clip there, but damn Viacom won't let their clips stay on the YouTube.Com...bastards).

Anyway, my favorite clip from that show was probably Stephen Colbert doing the NBC prologue for game 3 of the 1997 Eastern Conference Finals between the Bulls and Heat.




Those damn NBC Prologues were the best. Its prolly the combo of the music and the Bob Costas and Marv Albert (if you ever wanted to hear Marv Albert say "sloppy ball" watch the beginning of that clip...that's the only reason it is there) voice-overs.

Speaking of the NBA, did you watch the Spurs/Suns game yesterday? This is gonna be a good series - probably just as good as the Mavs/Warriors one. You have Nash, Stoudamire, Marion, Barbosa, Duncan, Parker, Ginobli and Big Shot Rob. It is gonna be awesome.

If nothing else, it led to this photograph. Here's a video of the accident.

Steve Nash should just be happy he ran into Tony Parker and not Jack Bauer.

Bartenders, SNL and Team Karen

As I said Monday, I'm traveling. So when I go out to eat, I usually sit at the bar of whatever restaurant I go to because I am by myself. This usually gives me a way to watch TV and get my food rather promptly. As a bonus I'm not sitting all by myself (the people in the crowd dancing in that video kill me...also, did you know that song was originally sung by Eric Carmen - that's Carmen not Cartman - and not by a woman? I did not) looking like a tool.

Anyway, can someone please explain to me why the dumpy bartender feels that she needs to flirt with me? Now, I'm not one to turn down some casual flirting, but, honestly, I'm there for food, you're gonna get tipped, the ring (that one gets even funnier at the end) on my finger clearly indicates that I'm married despite the fact that I'm sitting at a bar by myself, and, perhaps most importantly, you're not hot and you know it. It's one thing if you are trying to play up the cute angle, but you know you can't do that so why are you trying to give me the treatment? This may work for the truckers that roll through Kokomo, but I'm in a suit, looking dapper and clearly not looking to hook-up with you. Please, be nice, but please, don't treat me like I'm a horny 15-year-old that will put my cod in anything that resembles a box.

But I digress. What I really wanted to do today was beat a dead horse. I have two clips, one that you may have seen (I watched it live) and one I hadn't seen until today. They show just how far SNL has fallen.

I'll start with the good clip. It features Chris Farley, Phil Hartman and Mohr's BCS #1 Man-Crush, Bill Murray.



I laughed the entire way through that skit. Start to finish. I probably laughed the hardest when that dude got tagged in the mejitos. Good times.

On the other end of the spectrum, here is a clip from a recent SNL featuring Lindsay Lohan.



The premise of that skit isn't funny and it features a whole slew of SNL personalities I don't like, including a cameo from Keenan. Ironically, I laughed at that skit, not because it was all that funny, but because they were all laughing so hard (something that Jimmy Fallon is notorious for). Breaking the skit is what made that sketch funny and that's not good news. I guess it could be worse...they could be using Carlos Mencia. SNL is diappointing each and every week (much like this clip of Andre Agassi tagging Steffi Graf) and I'm hoping that if I keep saying it, finally it will catch on.

I've decided that I can't leave you with that, and since it is Thursday, that means its a great time to give an Office shout-out. I wanted to mention the undercover hottness of Pam (Jenna Fischer). My friends and I have been discussing this ever since we saw these Puma ads from a couple years ago, but for me it really came to light in the movie Blades of Glory (which was pretty funny by the way - if nothing else, there's a Mr. Feeny cameo and I love Boy Meets World). There's a clip here that is PG-13 so, kids, you should probably not watch this one.



I'm still a Team Karen person, but I may be more apt to root for Team Pam after that...


I guess I would be OK with Jim switching to team Pam after Blades of Glory.